Experts seek sustainable maternal care funding

ZANZIBAR: ZANZIBAR needs a sustainable government financing pathway for poor and highrisk pregnant women to ensure they receive timely and quality care throughout pregnancy, delivery and the postnatal period, health experts have said.

The experts made the call yesterday during a panel discussion on “No Mother Left Behind: Financing and Digitally Integrated Care for Poor and High-Risk Pregnant Women” at the 13th Tanzania Health Summit.

The discussion reviewed early evidence from the Zanzibar Health Services Fund (ZHSF) Mothers Care demonstration model, with panellists calling for stronger integration of health and digital systems and better use of existing resources.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Financing Expert, Ms Regina Ndakidemi, said the government should establish a clear pathway for incorporating vulnerable populations into its health financing architecture.

She said this would help ensure interventions targeting pregnant women remained sustainable beyond individual projects.

“If we have a clear path, projects like this one can be well embedded in our path because the government will come and say these are my priorities and within this path I will reduce maternal deaths,” she said.

PharmAccess Zanzibar Interim Programme Director, Ms Jonia Swakea, called for stronger collaboration between ZHSF and PharmAccess to maximise evidence generated through the Mothers Care project and inform future maternal health interventions.

She also urged the government to consider a specialised maternal care package covering the entire maternal health journey, while strengthening digital systems to track mothers and identify gaps in services.

“Having a customised maternal care package covering the maternal care journey will help in meeting pregnant women’s needs well,” she said.

Ms Swakea said effective digital tracking could help health authorities identify service gaps early, improve quality of care and ultimately save more mothers and babies.

Meanwhile, Sanofi Health Unit Medical Doctor-Global Lead, Dr Joseph Muga, cautioned against treating inadequate funding as the only obstacle to improving maternal healthcare.

He said health systems could achieve significant gains by reducing wastage, strengthening linkages and planning, preventing medicine stock-outs and improving the availability and use of data.

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“Finances are not the only problem. We need to get our minds away from thinking that we do not have money, therefore we cannot do anything,” Dr Muga said.

Speaking on the ZHSF project, Ministry of Health Zanzibar’s IRCH Programme Manager, Dr Kamilya Ali Omar, said the initiative was designed to strengthen maternal healthcare for poor and high-risk pregnant women through innovative financing, digital tracking, partnerships and health-system strengthening.

Jointly financed by PharmAccess and the Ministry of Health Zanzibar, the project began in May 2024 and targets 5,000 pregnant women from poor households over two years.

Eligible women include those from poor households and those with high-risk conditions such as pre-eclampsia, previous Caesarean sections, anaemia and other obstetric complications.

The three-day summit, which began on October 5 and ended yesterday, was held under the theme “Building Health Sovereignty and Strengthening Health Systems in a Changing Global Order.”